Your Right to Know

Mayor Michael B. Coleman is acknowledging tensions with Columbus school officials and is
pleading with the community tonight to take up the fight for better education in Columbus.

The pleas are part of Coleman’s record 14th State of the City address that he is delivering
tonight at South High School. The speech opens with the city’s successes in revitalizing the South
Side, improving safety and remaining fiscally stable.

But according to a draft copy of the speech provided before he gave it, Coleman quickly turns
to education and the embattled Columbus City Schools – embroiled in a state and federal
investigation into attendance scrubbing, grade changing and allegations of fraud. The words
education, school and schools are among the most-used in the speech.

Saying that “transition always causes tensions,” Coleman’s speech does not mention the
scandal, but lauds outgoing Superintendent Dr. Gene Harris for accomplishments that “are too many
to count.”

In his speech Coleman says changing education should be the city’s next “civil rights
movement” and that a child’s financial situation or race should not dictate the type of education
he or she receives.

“So tonight, let us set a new goal: for Columbus to become the best city in the nation for
every child to receive a quality education,” the speech reads. “As leaders, we cannot allow the
wedge of rumor and innuendo to sidetrack us. It makes us small.”

Earlier this week, school board members said they had heard that Coleman and his 25-member
Columbus Education Commission were planning to remove the board. Coleman and others insisted that
wasn’t true.

Coleman’s speech calls on the school board to work better with his Columbus Education
Commission to make the district better.

“Unfortunately we don’t have enough good schools in Columbus,” the speech reads. “We must
support success and replace failure.”